


no such thing as a lone wolf

by elfloversanonymous (asexuelf)



Series: whoops! we're mated [1]
Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Accidental Bonding, Alpha Anders (Dragon Age), Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Claiming Bites, Fenris (Dragon Age) has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Fog Warriors, Healthy Relationships, M/M, Mating Bites, Nonbinary Character, Nonbinary Hawke (Dragon Age), Omega Fenris (Dragon Age), Past Slavery, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Trans Fenris (Dragon Age), Trauma, fenris centric, fog warrior ocs, nonbinary ocs, this is really about fenris healing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-20
Updated: 2019-03-20
Packaged: 2019-11-26 04:17:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18175745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asexuelf/pseuds/elfloversanonymous
Summary: He knows he should force these thoughts from his mind, but the humid, sea-side jungle can’t be forgotten.(Fenris’ trauma causes him to rebel against the idea of joining Hawke’s - or anyone’s - pack.)





	no such thing as a lone wolf

**Author's Note:**

> this fic was going to have a dope orgy at the end but tragically it did not fit the narrative so prepare for a whole separate orgy fic at a later date,,, warnings for slavery and abuse mentions throughout, as well as a lot of guilt tied up in trauma, etc etc... it's a fenris-centic fic, so expect sad things basically ajkdlsdfs
> 
> i'm trying to post this in the middle of the night after accidentally putting my finishing touches on my first draft instead of final draft (i have gazed into the eyes of the devil and when he gazed back he knew only fear), so big sorries for any mistakes! hopefully everything is put together well and is a good read to boot :3 i just noticed the fenders tag was slowing down a bit and wanted to fill it with my nonsense
> 
> anyways, enjoy! ;3

It’s while he’s following the curve of the new mark on his neck, rubbing thoughtful circles into the still-tender flesh, that he realizes how hard it will be to avoid now. For the past three years -  _ three years  _ \- he’s done all he can to avoid joining Hawke’s pack and now… 

It’s hard, sometimes. He admits that to himself, at least. He loves the pack. Even before the bite linked him to them all, he loved them. Will likely always love them. They are brave, kind, and funny people. Stupid people, too. Strange, foolhardy, hardheaded people who fight each other nearly as much as they fight their enemies yet take care of each other, in all the ways they can. They’ve taken care of him the same ways, when he can’t avoid it, and he can only hope he’s taken care of them.

He  _ wants  _ to take care of them. Isabela is the pack omega, but she’s made it more than clear they have room for one more. She wants him to join, she tells him, wants him to stand beside her and help her care for their crew. The two of them as caretakers is laughable, in his eyes, and in her own if the mirth she speaks with tells him anything, but they both want it just as badly. They all do. 

Still, he resists. 

The scar covering what was once Danarius’ claim on him haunts the other side of Fenris’ throat, high by his ear instead of low against the shoulder where the new mark lies. Although his hair has grown from the short, jagged mess he cut it into upon becoming free, it can’t quite hide the scar. Everyone he ever meets can see it - their eyes drift to it on reflex before widening in horror or disgust or pity. 

The pack can all see it. They’ve even heard half the tale and yet, somehow, they still want him.

Even Anders wants him, even as the remains of another alpha’s ownership over him keeps their bond company.

These should be happy thoughts, he thinks, that they desire him regardless of what he is, but instead he remembers Kanegan, the white-painted alpha, and the way his face had gone cold with hidden anger at a Magister’s mark upon his neck. The ghost of cold steel lingers past the memory, painful under his ear. He will always be haunted by that moment, he thinks, and the way Kanegan had cut the mark away, had cut him free, only to be cut down.

Kanegan was a good alpha. The Fog Warriors were a good pack.

He can still see their faces in his mind, hear their voices and know their desires. They live still in his memories, despite his betrayal, and he grasps their fading portraits desperately even as it pains him.

Sulenalan, slender and funny, tall and witty, with their mate Sanan, so similar to himself; he would go with them, sometimes, hunting together for the food they fed their pack. Before he’d met them, Fenris hadn’t known two omegas could be bonded, but Sulenalan and Sanan’s love was stronger than anything.

He’d asked them questions like a child, confused and insulted by their existence.

“Omegas are born to serve alphas,” he’d told them. He had been a fool then. A slave. “The Maker wills our obedience.”

Sanan had smiled so sadly at him, a kindness he had never before been shown. “I have no maker,” she’d replied in quiet thoughtfulness. “I obey the heart that bids me love Sulenalan. I serve only Sanan.”

“And Kanegan?”

Sanan had laughed out loud. Even Sulenalan’s firm expression had softened with humor.

“Kanegan doesn’t want to be served.” Sulenalan’s eyes found him, meeting his own like an equal. “In your Tevinter, I think they call him a  _ shitty alpha _ . Here, we call him friend. Protector.”

So Fenris had called him that, too. Sometimes more than that.

Then there was Askalit and Tamehan, both so fiery and passionate for betas, and their four pups - all whom had been sired by different alphas. It had been obvious just by looking at them. In the Tevinter court, it would have been worthy of scornful laughter at best. 

When he had asked xem who had carried them, Tamehan had laughed at him fondly, gazing out with him at Tamar, Kanim, Alit, and Nathra as they all played with the other pups. There isn’t much time or place to play in blood-soaked Seheron, but the Fog Warriors did well by their young.

“Why does that matter?” Tamehan had said, xyr voice low, touched with far-away contentment. Xe always sounded so at peace. “They’re ours. Askalit and mine, yes, but they’re the  _ entire _ pack’s children. Yours too, if you stay.”

The children laughed, freer than any of them would ever feel as adults on this island. At least, he assumed so. The memory of Kanegan’s hands on him, mouth hot against his own for those brief, shaking moments… Kanegan always seemed so free. His face was always open and always kind, even in anger. When he smiled, his entire face moved with it. When he laughed, it shook his whole body. When he loved…

Fenris had never been loved before. Only owned.

He’d told Tamehan he’d think about it. Those hot-sun days when the sea separated him from his alpha and master, anything seemed possible and everything felt impossible.

His gaze had slid from the children and back to the wine-dark waves playing at the shore miles and miles away and below.

Days later, he’d asked Athesia for her opinion. She was an omega, too, but not at all like he was then. Now, she reminds him of Isabela; wild and free and vicious, so unlike what Fenris had always been told an omega should be.

Sulenalan and Senan had frightened him - to love another omega in Tevinter would be suicide - but something about Athesia had shocked him cold with terror when she spoke. She was the pack omega, but she was so  _ strong _ , tall as himself and just as thick with muscle. Her hair was long and curled, pretty like a stream of rushing water, and dark like shapes in moonlight.

She terrified him because he wanted to be just like her.

“Don’t ask me if you can stay.” Her voice was stern as ever, colored in that alpha authority that he was so familiar with. To hear an omega speak with it… He’d never known it was possible. He wanted her to teach him. “I don’t own you, little starlight. Only you can decide where to go from here. Not me, not Kanegan, not-” She pointed to the still-healing wound under his ear. “ _ Magister filth _ . Only you.”

He knows he should force these thoughts from his mind, but the humid, sea-side jungle can’t be forgotten. Even if it could be, he wouldn’t. This is about duty, he knows. If he doesn’t remember them, no one will. If he does not bare the burden of the blood on his hands, then-

Then nothing. He will never be punished for his crime. Who  _ would _ punish him? Athesia? Kanegan?

Danarius?

Fenris wonders if his sleeping mate behind him can feel his pain through the new bond. He wonders if anyone will remember Hawke’s pack, when they are gone.

When he sleeps, Hightown is swallowed by high tide. No one screams. No one begs their Maker for mercy. Slowly, the sky turns red.

*

Fenris is not looking forward to Wicked Grace night.

“You smell so grumpy!” The usual reason for that pokes his head into the doorway, long hair hanging on his shoulders while he searches for his hair tie. “It’s only cards, you know. If you’d like to take the night off, you’re welcome to.”

A bright flare of indignation fills Fenris for a moment, and when he turns to face Anders, he finds the man wrinkling his nose. He knows angry omega is quite the stench - it may as well be his core scent, really. People avoid him in public, or shoot him looks like the one his alpha shoots him now, but he can’t help it. Any suggestion from Anders sounds like an order and he bristles, ready to spit venom like Athesia did, ready to protect himself from another cruel alpha hoping to control him.

A week has passed since their initial mating and the bond is so new. Some mornings, Fenris wakes before his mate and fingers the bite with pride and happiness. He lies against his alpha, breathing in his cool, comfortable scent, and feels so entirely at peace he could fall into the Void and never notice.

It’s not one of those mornings now. It’s late evening and the bite  _ itches _ like sticking paste dried to his skin. Fenris glares and condemns the man before him to the Void instead.

Anders only sighs. “I know this isn’t ideal for you. If you’d like to hold off seeing the others for a while, it’s okay. That’s all I mean.”

It’s kind of him to say so, and Fenris knows it. Even as that venom rises in him, the new bond wills him to bend to Anders’ whims. To  _ serve him _ . To love him. Still, he steels himself to retort, “Who is to say I need your permission?”

“No one, because you don’t.” He says it so easily, almost tiredly, more a sigh than a sentence. Like it’s the truth and it always has been. Like he is not fighting against his own nature to take and claim and control. “I’m… happy, if you’ll believe it, to have you as my-” The hesitation is so obvious, it makes Fenris bristle even further. “My omega. I need you to know that those words don’t mean you’re my property. They never will, Fenris. Those words mean  _ pack _ .”

Fenris turns his head sideways, considering. He knows he’s being unfair, but he  _ has to be _ . He knows Anders is a good man (he has known it for a long time) and he knows Anders will not do harm to him (he wants to know that for a long time), but there’s still more holding him back. Things like Danarius’ violent hands, yes, and the similarities they share with Anders’, but also Kanegan’s blood staining his own fingers red for days to come, for months, for years. For eternity.

Kanegan’s pack could have been his own.

Despite it all, Anders is a good man, a good alpha with a good pack, and Fenris cannot risk harming any of them. If he gives Anders any power over him, if he lets Anders care for him… It will always end the same way.

“I … will remain here, tonight.” He kicks the ground. The scuff of the broken tile against his bare feet feels comforting. Anders says he wants to fix the mansion up, when they can, but Fenris prefers it this way, crumbling and jagged and his. “You should go. Play cards with the- with Hawke’s pack.”

The smile Anders gives him then is tentative. “Would you like me to stay, keep you company? Newly mated and all, they won’t judge.”

Ears warming, Fenris shakes his head. “Go, let them know we survived each other. Give Isabela her lurid details. We know she’ll want them.”

“Not  _ too _ lurid, though.” The timid smile turns gleeful, crooked. He looks younger when he makes that face, but never as young as he is. “She likes it better when she can use her imagination, I think.”

He huffs, amused. That much is true, at least. Isabela could give Varric some good competition, if only she were willing to publish her ridiculous smut. Then again, it may be better that she doesn’t.  _ Lyrium Omega and the Honey-Eyed Alpha  _ doesn’t sound like a book he wants anyone else reading.

“I’m off, then. Would you… like me to come back tonight? I can stay at the clinic.”

His stomach drops, turning cold in something like guilt, and he struggles to keep his feelings off his face. “You live here. We have agreed on this at least, haven’t we?”

“Well, yes, I know that. If you need space, is all…”

“No, alpha,” His heart flutters a little at the sound of the word aloud. Embarrassing, especially with the fruit-sweet scent he knows will cling to him because of it. “I won’t have you walk through Darktown at night. It will be safer to come back to the mansion.”

Anders looks at the floor with a smile. “You don’t have to call me that, you know.” Despite his words, Fenris doesn’t miss the faint whiff of honey that drifts his way

He is silent for a moment, before saying, challengingly, “I will call you as I please.”

The grin that splits Anders’ face is well worth it.

“Now, shoo. Go bet all our coin like I know you will and lose it all like the fool you are.”

Anders rushes forward to kiss him goodbye.

*

Days pass by almost blissfully, even with their disagreements.

It’s alarming. Things are too good. They won’t last.

In an effort to chase him away, to protect him, Fenris tells his alpha the truth.

“He made me kill them.”

Underneath him, Anders stills, surprised. And little wonder he is; the night has passed quite nicely so far for him, what with his warm omega cuddled up beside him in bed after tasting his knot. Words like that would startle anyone, but in the fading afterglow, they must hit like a stone maul to the side.

“Danarius.” Fenris details, voice despondent. “For a time, I was free of him. Physically, at least. During this time, I lived with…” Dark, lithe forms, painted white with clay. Warm, loving people, bright in the midst of dark-powder explosions. “I was part of a pack. Then, Danarius came back for me and he- He ordered me to take their lives and I obeyed. I cut them down like they were-” 

Panic shakes him, a phantom touch of the mind-numbing fear that had filled him in Seheron those blood-soaked moments. They all fell so quickly. Did they even fight back?

He can’t remember. The pups didn’t. Couldn’t. He knows that much.

He breathes in for the scent of alpha, but finds Anders’ scent mint-touched and sour like boiling deathroot. The scent makes the room feel freezing. 

“I was involved, before. With the pack alpha… I wanted to be his. The pack, even, they started to-” He chokes, his own throat suffocating him. His eyes burn.

“Oh, Fenris…”

“They started to  _ answer _ to me. No one had ever done that before, not that I could remember. Even Athesia would turn to me if Kanedan was not there.  _ Athesia. _ And when she turned to me, to protect me from Danarius, I slit her-” He cannot finish the thought. 

The red hot blood pours from her throat, jumps in awful streams to hit his face and stain his hair. The others are screaming. Sulenalan’s wide-eyed stare haunts him still, whether they be open in betrayal or in death. Did Senan mourn, howl out in anguish at the loss of her mate, or was she already dead?

A sharp pain lances through his mating bite and he goes limp, his ragged sobs jerking to a sudden halt. Anders’ teeth stay latched to him just long enough for his breathing to calm. When it does, he can only wince as Anders removes his teeth, then slowly relax again as his alpha laps kindly at the wound.

It takes a long time before Anders stops and speaks.

“Thank you for telling me, Fenris.”

A resigned kind of sadness fills him. “I loved them all. Now they are dead.” Again, Anders’ mouth finds the mark, this time to gently kiss. It is a small comfort, yet it aches like a bone-deep bruise in his chest. “You cannot trust me, with yourself or the pack.”

The tongue against his neck stills. “What?”

“Danarius will come again for me and-”

“No, Fenris. It’s not like it was.”

“You don’t unders-”

“ _ No. _ ” A faint growl rumbles in his chest under Fenris’ grasping hand. “Danarius does not have the same hold over you. He never will again.”

So he says. But Fenris has fought this battle for many years and knows better by now.

“You can’t see it the way we can, from the outside, but I’ve watched you become more and more free as time goes by. You do things for yourself. You grow further and further from his influence. From your past.” His eyes stare into Fenris’ own with so much care. There is something determined, too, hard as stone behind his amber gaze. “Danarius killed those people, Fenris. That blood is on his hands, not yours. You can leave that guilt behind you now, love. I swear it.”

Is there a way to explain it to Anders - to explain it at all? Danarius will not mourn these people. Even now, when their deaths cost the loss of his favorite pet, Fenris doubts he spares even a thought for them. If Fenris does not take this sin as his own, then the Fog Warriors died for nothing.

The Fog Warriors died for nothing.

He sobs into his alpha’s chest and mourns.

*

After his confession, things get… better. Not perfect, by any means, but Fenris slowly begins to open more to the possibility of being a part of the pack. He avoids the rest still, to the best of his ability (although he rarely gets away with it), but when he can’t, he avoids mentioning the pack dynamics or even his being mated to Anders.

Mostly, he gets away with this, allowed his distance. They know him so well by now, know he needs this space, but they have their own needs to attend to as well. They like to push and tease, after all. He doesn’t mind as much as he should; he should keep himself in check to protect them, he thinks, even if he admits now to being a part of the pack, if only through Anders’ bite.

With Anders, at home, everything is wonderful. Arguments become discussions. Biting remarks become teasing compliments and affectionate jests. Fenris loves his alpha and his alpha allows him the space to keep being Fenris, to keep being a person.

Still, that fear fills him, and when Varric asks him how he and Anders are settling in their new arrangements, he feels himself shutter and grow guarded. 

*

It isn’t until Danarius is dead that it truly becomes official.

As Danarius lies dead, he turns on Varania like an animal, the feral wolf his master always claimed him to be. He growls low, ready to tear her to the smallest of pieces for this betrayal-

Hawke stops him.

“No, Fenris.” Their voice is hard with alpha authority and Fenris turns to them in shock. Hawke has never used that tone with him, not for all the years he’s known them. To hear it now, for this reason, breaks his heart. “Don’t kill her. This isn’t her fault.”

He turns on Hawke, snarling to hide his wet eyes. “She was ready to hand me over to him! She would sell every one of you for power!”

“No, Fenris.”

“How dare you-”

“ _ Look at her. _ ” 

He flits his eyes between them. Varania has his face, the same nose. She looks angry and afraid, like himself, world-weary and full of poison.

“Do you really think Danarius would make one of his  _ slaves _ a magister?” Fenris bristles, ready to correct them, to tell them what that awful man is-  _ was _ like. But, Hawke is right… Did Danarius not call him the strongest man, the most capable omega, in all of Tevinter just before violating him, laughing as he was made powerless before his master? “She had no choice, Fenris.”

Fenris lowers his blade. He and Varania glare at each other. She too is an omega, judging by the sour scent of her fear - and it  _ is  _ fear.

Danarius would never allow this elven omega, slave or freedwoman, any amount of power in his house. Fenris knows that well; he lived the reality of it for many years and will live longer yet with the scars.

Fenris sheaths his sword. The weight of the world seems to follow it, crushing him the moment the blade rests against his back.

“Leave,” he tells her. His sister.

Before she does, she whips back to rub salt in the wound. A family trait, he thinks. When she finally leaves, no one asks her where she’s going.

His alpha takes him home, but they sleep in separate rooms at Fenris’ behest.

The next morning, Fenris moves carefully into the doorway of the small room that Anders takes his breakfast.

“I want to join the pack.”

Anders halts his chewing in surprise. “Why now?”

Fenris falls silent for many moments. He doesn’t answer, but he thinks Anders knows why.  _ Danarius killed those people _ . Anders understood that even before he did.  _ You can leave that guilt behind you now. _

No one can punish Fenris for his sin but Fenris. And only Fenris can forgive himself.

It wasn’t Varania’s fault, not really. She was free when she made her choice, but only in the way that Fenris was free when Danarius ordered he slaughter his pack. So, he forgives her. He takes a very hard swing at trying to, at least.

It’s not the same, but it’s a step in the right direction.

**Author's Note:**

> sorry for the abrupt ending! i couldnt figure out a way to add more to it that didnt feel artificial :p but i hope you liked it anyways! lmk what you thought and we will return to your irregularly scheduled porn on this acc soon (hopefully)


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